


r/spacelegal: May 25th, 2121

by Anonymous



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Law, Science Fiction, Worldbuilding, reddit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-26 21:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30112572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: r/spacelegal: A place to get simple legal advice for all your off-Earth legal issues
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14
Collections: Worldbuilding Exchange 2021





	r/spacelegal: May 25th, 2121

**Author's Note:**

  * For [possibilityleft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilityleft/gifts).



> Written for the 2021 Worldbuilding Exchange for possibilityleft, who requested a space law version of [r/legaladvice](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/). I had a lot of fun writing this! Thanks for reading :)

_Posted by u/ReliablePenguin 7 hours ago  
_ **Can my ex-wife move our children to another planet? (Earth - US)**

My ex and I have been divorced for 3 years, and have joint custody of our two children (age 8 and 10). While she sees them more than me, I still try to be involved with their lives. I always pay child support, and care about them both a lot. My ex and I have had a rocky relationship in the past, but since we split up, we’ve both done our best to put our differences aside and try to put the best interests of our children first.

Recently, my ex got offered a major promotion. The catch is, it’s at her company’s Mars office. She wants to accept it, and take the kids with her. She says it’s only for a few years, and it’ll give them a new perspective on life. But where does that leave me? I can’t pick up and move to another planet, and I want to see my kids every weekend (as is laid out in our custody agreement). 

Do I have any legal recourse here? 

**7 Comments | Share | Save | Hide | Report**

  * _noiselessabsurdity0425 7 hours ago_  
It depends a lot on your jurisdiction and the details of your custody agreement. Your best course of action here is to contact the lawyer you initially drafted the custody agreement with.
  * _Comment removed by moderator_
    * _WoozyMayhem 6 hours ago_  
**Generally Unhelpful, Simplistic, Anecdotal, or Off-Topic**  
Your comment has been removed as it is generally unhelpful, simplistic to the point of useless, anecdotal, or off-topic. It either does not answer the legal question at hand, is a repeat of an answer already provided, or is so lacking in nuance as to be unhelpful. Please review the rules before commenting further. 
      * _PowerfulVoltage 7 hours ago_  
Yeah, maybe it would be a cool opportunity for the kids. But that’s not what OP is asking. If they don’t like the idea of not seeing their kids as much as their custody agreement states, they want to know if they have legal recourse--and the answer is yes. 
        * _bucket_of_fingers 6 hours ago_  
Maybe you can work things out so that they spend more extended holiday time with you? Or maybe they could live with you for a full year, and then live with Mom on Mars for the next year? 
          * _PowerfulVoltage 6 hours ago_  
Yeah maybe. But OP is also within their rights to fight the whole thing.
  * _HopelesslySubtle 5 hours ago_  
Something similar happened with my ex-husband and I. We ended up working out some changes to our custody agreement--he accepted the new job offer and took the kids with him for a year, but it was his responsibility to pay for them to travel back to Earth to spend holidays with me. Sit down with the lawyer who you two worked with when you were first separating, and see if you can work something out.



* * *

_Posted by u/onerous_spaghetti 4 hours ago  
_ **Just found out my boss has been hiding how many hours there are in a day**

So I work in a mine on a planet outside of the Sol system (don’t want to share any more than that in case it’s too identifiable). It’s a pretty small operation as far as these things go--basically my boss just bought the speculation rights to the area, got really lucky, and set up a single mining operation. 

I’m here on a ten year contract, which is standard for the industry. It’s hard work, but I’m gonna be set for life when I finish my contract and come back to Earth, so I don’t really mind. Or at least I didn’t think I did.

But yesterday, I was looking up more about this planet, and I learned that each “day” is around 26 Earth hours. So I asked my manager what was happening to those two extra hours--were we spending them on the clock, or were they being added to our free time? She said that because we were contracted to work 10-hour Earth days, that meant we were contracted to work 42% of each day, because that’s 10 divided by 24. So on a 26 hour day, she said we had to work 11 hours/day. She said it’s not a big deal, because that means we’re getting an extra hour of free time as well as an extra hour of work time, so it all balances out. But when I asked if it meant we’re being paid more, she just said we were getting a yearly salary, and that salary was based on full-time hours. She never told us any of this when we were hired, just had us sign standard contracts saying we’d work 10 hours/day.

Is this legal? And if it’s not, what do I do about it? We’re pretty isolated out here so I’m not sure if we could get anyone to back us up if we brought this up with our boss.

**10 Comments | Share | Save | Hide | Report**

  * _hopelessly_ghastly_normalcy 4 hours ago_  
That’s definitely a violation of the contract you signed. In fact, it’s a pretty major one. Suuuper illegal. 
    * _ThePsychedelicBlather 4 hours ago_  
The real question is, how can OP actually pursue this? They’re out in the middle of nowhere. 
      * _hopelessly_ghastly_normalcy 4 hours ago_  
The real question for a legal forum is whether OP *can* pursue this legally, not how. And yes OP, you definitely can.
  * _nearlypricklyflora 4 hours ago_  
Just leave. Your boss has violated your contract. Just quit. 
    * _lighter_than_air 3 hours ago_  
But what if OP still wants this job?
  * _stormy_stanza 3 hours ago_  
Look into law for off-shore oil rigs on Earth. A lot of the law governing remote mining operations is based on this.
  * _NoisilyBlissful 3 hours ago_  
I guess my question is...why is this a big deal? You said it yourself, you have two extra hours in each day, and one of them you work and one you get to yourself. Honestly, that sounds like a dream! And you’re making serious money. 
    * _lighter_than_air 3 hours ago_  
Ummmm OP cares because this is a huge labor law violation. This is not how employment contracts work. 
      * _milky_solitude 2 hours ago_  
Not to mention, if there are two extra hours to every day, how many days are there in a year? Is your “10 year contract” actually going to take 15 Earth years, OP? How long does it take for this planet to revolve around its sun??? 
        * _PowerfulVoltage 2 hours ago_  
Also, a 10-year contract is definitely not “standard for the industry.” What other lies has OP’s boss been telling them?



* * *

_Posted by u/throwaway0674308177 2 hours ago  
_ **Accidental first contact--please help!**

TL;DR I think I made first contact with a new alien species but I didn’t report it and now I don’t know what to do.

OK so I KNOW I messed up here. I get it. But I really didn’t mean any harm.

I’m a long-haul freighter pilot, which means I spend a lot of time alone out in deep space. It also means that sometimes I have to make decisions that are a little outside of the “official” guidelines for interplanetary travel. For instance, basically every long-haul pilot I know has occasionally had to touch down on an unknown celestial body. Things break down! All the interplanetary hauling companies don’t want you to know these kinds of things happen, but when they plan their routes, it’s pretty clear that they assume that sometimes one of their drivers will end up landing somewhere not yet surveyed by the Unified Earth Alliance. 

So last month, I was doing one of my usual routes, when I realized I needed to re-charge the fuel cells. This is something you can only do when you’re on the ground. I looked for the nearest place to land, and lo and behold, there’s a planet only five light years away. It’s marked Unsurveyed, which could mean anything, but most often just means no breathable atmosphere and a bunch of rocks. I’ve been doing this job for ten years, and that’s all I’ve ever had happen to me.

So I landed. I got out. And at first, everything looked normal. Rocks, dust. I had my space suit on, fixing up the fuel cells, when there behind me was a cloud of light. It was floating, sparkling, and it was made up of many colours, including some I can’t quite describe? And it was coming towards me. 

I froze. I didn’t know what to do. So I just stood there and let the light pass through me. And as I did, I felt this sense that something was greeting me. I don’t know how to put it into words. I just _knew_.

I dealt with the fuel cells as fast as I could, and hopped back into my ship and took off. Only once I’d left did I really face up to what I’m pretty sure happened--that was an alien. Intelligent life. It communicated with me.

I know. I should have confessed right away, submitted a report to the company, or the Alliance. But I have a life! I was busy! And I wasn’t supposed to be on that planet anyway! 

But I’ve started to feel them communicating with me again, more and more. It’s hard to describe, but I _know_ something is talking to me. Only problem is, it’s been a month. If I report this now, how much trouble am I going to be in?

**11 Comments | Share | Save | Hide | Report**

  * _TheAcidicAbundance 2 hours ago_  
Yeah, you fucked up. Best thing to do now will be to come clean, but be aware that this is a pretty major offence.
  * _jazzy_snail 2 hours ago_  
OK, I need more information. OP, you say the company tacitly encourages this behaviour? Do you have anything in writing from any of your superiors even hinting at the idea that you might need to stop at uncharted planets? This could be huge. 
    * _throwaway0674308177 1 hour ago_  
I’m not sure. Do you think it would count if I had route maps that showed that there was no way I could get from my starting point to my destination without having to stop on an uncharted planet? But otoh I bet the company would just say those routes were calculated in error and the pilots should have reported it. We’ve never been told explicitly to land on an uncharted planet. But a lot of people do. 
      * _jazzy_snail 1 hour ago_  
Honestly this could be a huge lawsuit. But I can’t say which way it would go.
  * _Comment removed by moderator_
    * _WoozyMayhem 2 hours ago_  
**Generally Unhelpful, Simplistic, Anecdotal, or Off-Topic**  
Your comment has been removed as it is generally unhelpful, simplistic to the point of useless, anecdotal, or off-topic. It either does not answer the legal question at hand, is a repeat of an answer already provided, or is so lacking in nuance as to be unhelpful. Please review the rules before commenting further. 
      * _lighter_than_air 1 hour ago_  
OP gets it, they made a mistake. Now they’re asking for legal advice, not condemnation.
  * _StoutMotto 2 hours ago_  
1 month is not a ridiculously long time to take before reporting, especially if you can prove you were off-world for a lot of the time. I think a lot would hinge on whether you can prove that you did intend to report this and just took your time, or whether there’s any evidence that you never intended to come clean. 
    * _shakily_lost_brightness 1 hour ago_  
But the problem is, OP was trespassing on the planet in the first place. 
      * _StoutMotto 1 hour ago_  
OK but they needed to deal with the fuel cells. It was an emergency, right?
  * _VexedMetaphysics 1 hour ago_  
Delete this post and get a lawyer.




End file.
